


Everybody Loves a Fruit Basket

by AsheRhyder



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Jar of Bees - Freeform, M/M, Oh Maker Bees, So Many Bees
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-19
Updated: 2015-03-19
Packaged: 2018-03-18 13:46:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3571859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsheRhyder/pseuds/AsheRhyder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Sera's fault. Trevelyan appreciates it immensely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everybody Loves a Fruit Basket

  
  
    There are lots of mages around Skyhold. Inquisitor Trevelyan collects them the way some people acquire cats, starting with the three who fill his Inner Circle and later branching out to form an alliance with the rebel mages. He even makes Gereon Alexius part of the Inquisition, albeit a part under constant and considerable supervision.   
  
    Trevelyan himself is not a mage. While he doesn’t carry the traditional prejudices held the majority of the non-magical population, he does have certain assumptions about the practitioners of magic.   
  
    Mages wear robes, for one. At the very most, they wear some light armor. He has yet to fully figure out why, but he thinks it has something to do with the freedom of movement, or the way robes look when one throws one’s arms back dramatically to cast large spells.   
  
    Mages are very powerful, but not invulnerable. This one has been true on every occasion he’s had to test it. A shield to the face disrupts even the most amazing spell, and more than one fireball has detonated prematurely after a carefully deployed grappling chain yanked the caster right off their feet.   
  
    Mages are physically weak. They use magic for heavy lifting, and casting stances don’t really count as exercise. Some of them learn to use their staves as a weapon in close quarters, but rarely to any significant effect.   
  
    And certainly, there are mages who fit those criteria. Not one of the Inquisition mages wears heavy armor, and every Venatori they’ve met drops their spells when he, the Iron Bull, Cassandra, or Blackwall hits them. Vivienne never lifts anything bigger than a chalice without a little flicker of magic, and no one ever sees Solas lift anything, including the brushes he uses to paint the murals on the solar. Dorian moves quite a few books, but only ever for as long as it takes him to throw them aside.   
  
    They don’t do much to disabuse him of that misconception, though in Dorian’s case it could be because of the handsome figure Trevelyan cut when he lifted heavy objects. Also, compared to the Iron Bull, even Blackwall was a little stringy.   
  
    Then Sera accidentally drops a jar of bees on the practice ground while the Inquisitor is training with the soldiers. Bees are bad enough on their own, but Sera just started adding wasps, and panic spreads across the training yard under a swarm of angry insects.   
  
    Some of the soldiers run away, screaming and batting at their tiny assailants. Some of them freeze, practice weapons dropping from their terror-numbed hands. Trevelyan is among the latter group, breath hitching and eyes clenching tight. All he can hear is the buzzing, and all he can feel is tiny little feet crawling on his skin.   
  
    Cool numbness spreads across his skin; if he could think beyond the distress, he’d recognize it as a barrier spell. Muttered curses in a foreign tongue drown out the drone. There’s a pressure on his arm and then against his abdomen, and for a moment his feet leave the ground.   
  
    Trevelyan’s heart stops pounding, and he cracks an eye open to see a flash of warm bronze skin and leather with silver buckles. He has just enough time to realize that Dorian is _carrying_ him before the mage in question eases him down onto the grass and crouches beside him. He huffs slightly, but otherwise looks only mildly annoyed by the whole thing. The barriers dissipate with a pop.   
  
    “Well, that was inconvenient.” He says. “Did you get stung?”   
  
    “I don’t... think so?”   
  
    “Sorry about that,” Sera says, dropping down on his other side and grinning weakly. “But hey, at least we know it works on badasses right?”   
  
    Trevelyan finishes composing himself and gives her a long-suffering sigh.   
  
    “I hate wasps,” he says flatly.   
  
    “Whoops?” She shrugs. “At least Sparky here got you out.”   
  
    Trevelyan glances at Dorian, who buffs his nails against his chest and preens.   
  
    “My hero,” Trevelyan says, watching Dorian’s smile unfold. He realizes he likes that look on Dorian’s face, that unpretentious and genuine smile, much softer and warmer than the smile he usually wears. He’d like to see it again. He’d very much like to be the one to put it there.   
  
    “Yes, well, I did say I’d protect you,” says Dorian, “and that applies to swarms of bugs as well as swarms of demons.”  
  
    Sera looks back and forth at them, torn between the annoyance of being ignored and the glee of not getting reprimanded. Trevelyan has a disappointed look that makes bandits regret their choice of occupation and a set of puppy eyes that have made even Cassandra back down mid-chastisement, and Sera counts herself lucky that his quirky sense of humor means she’s never been on the receiving end of either, yet. She’d like to continue that streak for as long as possible.   
      
    She sneaks off. Someone will probably catch up later to complain, but that doesn’t mean she has to make it easy for them to find her. Besides, sappy romance is more up Cassandra’s alley anyway.   
  
    Later, after Dorian and Trevelyan get together officially, Trevelyan sends Sera a fruit basket. It was her jar of bees, after all.   
  


* * *

  
BONUS:   
  
    “How did you manage to lift me, anyway?”   
  
    “You’re not that much bigger than me, Amatus, and besides, it’s not as if mages don’t take any exercise.”   
  
    “They do?”   
  
    “Have you ever carried a stack of grimoires up the Circle stairs? Try lugging around the Compendium Ars Arcana for ten years, up five flights, with only five minutes between classes, and see how well you do.”   
  
    “Is that a book?”   
  
    “It’s seven hundred and eighty three pages and reinforced with silver plates.”   
  
    “Ah. Point taken.” 


End file.
